Kirill had become a god fairly recently—the Lion God of Winter and Death. The magic he'd taken to make himself a god had come from a Russian Goddess so, in a way, it tied Kirill to the Russian Pantheon. But he was also my lion and connected to his fellow Intare through me. This bond allowed Kirill to make the magic his own and join with me to form a small pantheon of two gods.
Forming our pantheon gave Kirill the opportunity to bind our lions to him. This was a benefit because, with his new death magic, he could offer our lions an afterlife—something I couldn't do. So, the Intare—including our dead lions who'd been previously bound to Anubis—had accepted Kirill as their second god, and Kirill had used that new connection to bring our dead home. Now, if any of the Intare died, Kirill could summon their souls to Pride Palace. I don't know if all of this has severed his ties with the Russian Pantheon but I hoped it did. Not that there was anything wrong with the Russians. It's just that multiple loyalties can prove difficult. I knew that better than most.
“Tima!” the voice of one of my werelions interrupted our conversation.
“It looks as if we may not have breakfast at all,” Trevor muttered.
I went to the intercom near the bedroom door and pressed the button to speak. “Yes?”
“Tima, this is Jake. I just got back from England.”
“Oh, lovely,” I exclaimed. “Cheery-O and all that. Or is it cheery pip? Cherry pit? Oh, whatever. Welcome home, Jake.”
“Uh, yeah, thanks. Um, Tima, you need to see some of the pictures I took.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It was meant to.”
“I'll be right down.” I gave Trevor a heavy look.
Trevor sighed and handed me my coffee. “For the road.”
I laughed as I accepted the mug. “You coming down?”
“Nah, I'll wait for Vero to get up. It should be soon, then we'll come downstairs and join you.”
Vero is our son. He's a little over a year now (I don't do the months thing) but with his Froekn—AKA werewolf—rapid growth, he was more like a 4 or maybe 5-year-old. I'm not the best at judging the age of children since all of mine grow faster than human kids. Basically, Vero walked, talked, and came to about mid-thigh on me. Which meant that he could get into lots of trouble if left to his own devices. Especially, if his older sister, Lesya, joined him. Imagine a cat and a dog teaming up to cause mayhem and you have Lesya and Vero.
“Okay, but I'll need one of these for the road too.” I gave Trevor one more kiss, then headed for the elevator. “What fresh hell is this?” I grumbled to myself as I went.
Chapter Two
Despite his very Anglo-Saxon name, Jake wasn't Caucasian. His birth name had been Jikai and that birth had happened in Japan, but his parents moved to America when Jake was young. They wanted their children to fit in so, when the kids were old enough to start school, they'd allowed him and his brothers to choose their own American names to use outside the home. The name Jake had been close enough to Jikai that he'd thought the transition would be easier on him. After Nyavirezi claimed him, he became Jake full-time so he could forget his previous life. When your present sucks, the past is just a painful reminder that you used to be happy.
Jake wasn't alone at the ridiculously long table in our medieval-esque dining hall. A handful of his fellow werelions were gathered around him, staring down at the dining table with rapt expressions. They were in front of the fireplace, which was in the middle of the inner, lengthwise wall of the rectangular room. As I mentioned, the morning was crisp and despite their different ethnicities, my werelions had been Intare long enough to adapt to their beasts' preferences. Lions like it warm if not tropical exactly. The fire was going and they each had a mug of coffee in their hands.
“What the fuck is that?” Elian asked, his dark, Cuban eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“That does not belong in England,” Hamish declared in his beautiful Scottish burr.
Hamish was one of our newly-returned souls and it made me smile just to see him standing beside his living brothers.
“What doesn't belong in England?” I asked.
The men jumped as if I'd snuck up on them and shouted “Boo!” I chuckled but then noticed the photographs spread across the table and frowned. There was something off about them.
“This,” Jake said and passed me a photo.
There was nothing chilling about the image in and of itself. It was just a photograph of the English countryside. There were trees around a grassy field spotted with wildflowers and a blue sky above. But upon closer inspection, I realized that the flowers were too large and too vividly colored. They had an exotic, tropical look to them and stood out sharply against the soft backdrop of neutral browns and greens.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
“There are more.” Jake handed me another photograph.
It was a close-up of one of the flowers. At that proximity there was no doubt that Hamish had been right—it didn't belong in England. Hell, those flowers didn't belong on Earth. Or in Hell, for that matter. They were fey flowers and I instantly knew why they were blooming in England: we had failed.
Remember that meeting I mentioned—the one Arach had been in when I left? It had been to coordinate a search of all of the places in the Fire Kingdom where there used to be paths connecting Faerie to Earth. Lugh, the High Prince of Faerie, had been on vacation in Ireland with his mother a few months back. Just like Jake, Lugh had seen a flower that didn't belong to the local flora. Unlike Jake, he'd watched the flower grow and bloom in front of him—in a matter of seconds.
Lugh's father, the High King of Faerie, didn't seem all that worried about a fey flower blooming on Earth and neither did Faerie herself. She blamed it on the flourishing of the realm but she had seemed distracted and strange to me. I would have insisted that something be done but I didn't have to. Despite his cavalier attitude, King Cian knew that Faerie seeping into the Human Realm was not a good thing. He sent out his wayfarers—faeries who specialize in the opening and closing of paths to the Faerie Realm—to search the Forgetful Forest for any open paths and close them. In addition to that, he sent a wayfarer to each elemental kingdom to close any paths found in them. Arach and I had personally gone with our assigned wayfarer and watched as he sealed several paths in our kingdom. That was months ago and we'd been assured that the paths were closed forever. And yet, here was proof that they weren't. Or that we'd missed some.
“What are they, Tima?” Jake asked.
Tima means “heart” in Rwandan. I was the Heart of the Intare, their goddess and source of their magic. I gave them life, sanity, and sanctuary and in return, they gave me their loyalty and obedience. I didn't like commanding people but my lions needed leadership. Without it, they'd devolve into beasts. At that moment, they needed reassurance too, but I wasn't going to be able to give it to them.